Monday, September 19, 2005

1960 Results: Ee-Yah! Prince Hal and Jennings (Finally!) Make the Hall of Merit!

In his first year of eligibility, Tiger star lefty Hal Newhouser was elected to the HoM comfortably with 79% of all possible points.

Demolishing Lip Pike’s record of 43 years on a ballot before becoming a HoMer, famed Baltimore Orioles captain Hughie Jennings was finally elected (barely) after 53 successive tries (he first became eligible way back in 1908). He also now owns the dubious record of the lowest percentage of all possible points for an inductee at 38%, breaking another record of Pike’s (the latter had 40% in 1940).

Rounding out the top-ten were: Joe Medwick, Earl Averill, Red Ruffing, Wes Ferrell, Biz Mackey, Clark Griffith, Eppa Rixey, and George Sisler. There’s a very good chance that the next inductee for 1961 will come out of this group.

Our electorate tied last “year’s” record with 73 candidates finding their names on a ballot for this election.

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So it looks like we should perhaps boost relief pitchers Warp1 by 28 to 29 percent (1980/1536 or 2961/2320). I had already been boosting them by 20 percent, for no particular reason other than it seemed about right. Any idea of what a similar ratio would look like for win shares? (For my pitcher evaluations I use an average of Warp1 and WS.)

Another consideration in comparing relievers to starting pitchers is that a starting pitchers innings may be concentrated in fewer seasons, giving them an advantage in peak value. For example, in 1934 Dean pitched 311 innings, going 30-7, and winning an MVP award that I regard as defensible. In contrast, I can't think of any season by a relief pitcher for which I would have supported an MVP award. I'd probably support a few Cy Young awards for relievers, but not an MVP.

I expect that we will support a few relief pitchers, but it will be interesting to see how it will sort itself out.

"But what if I said that we need to have a pinch hitter in the HoM? You'd say, well, so-and-so may have pinch hit .400 with an all-time high in pinch hits (I'm making this up) but I going 200 for 500 is just not enough career bulk, and I would have to agree."

I've thought of this myself. The difference to me is that no one is 'turned into' a PH, instead of being a regular because of a perceived advantage. There hasn't been one minor league star that I'm aware of, that was brought to the majors as a pinch-hitter.

There is perceived value in making a career as a reliever. People are paid salaries commensurate with some of the best players in the game to be relievers.

It's kind of like putting kickers or tight ends in the football Hall of Fame.

That's how I think of it anyway. I believe the best relievers of all-time should be in the Hall of Merit, even in if at first glance their IP totals appear to be a bit low. I also think the leverage of the innings they do pitch (generally accepted at around 1.5-2x 'starter' innings) should weigh into the argument.

But the leverage should be measured not againat 'replacement' for modern relievers, since if you lose your closer, you everybody else in the pen moves up a spot; the garbage man gets some middle relief time, the middle guy is a set-up man, the set-up man becomes the closer, and AAA pitcher gets the garbage innings with a leverage of 0.3 or something.

The 'leverage' of 1.5 to 2 should only be applied, IMHO, to runs saved above average, or even 'runs saved above a-little-better-than-average', which might take other overall LI down to 1.3 or so; higher for a guy with a super ERA+ like Mariano.

So it looks like we should perhaps boost relief pitchers Warp1 by 28 to 29 percent (1980/1536 or 2961/2320.

That Sutter and Gossage have about the same ratio between xip and leverage-adjusted innings here is probably due to chance. I would argue against simply applying a standard boost to relievers' WARP1.

Rather, we should try to get a sense, if we can, of how highly leveraged the reliever's usage was, check the actual xip/ip ratio used in WARP1, and then pro-rate accordingly.

Tom H wrote:

The 'leverage' of 1.5 to 2 should only be applied, IMHO, to runs saved above average, or even 'runs saved above a-little-better-than-average', which might take other overall LI down to 1.3 or so; higher for a guy with a super ERA+ like Mariano.

I don't see that replacement level for relievers is any different than replacement level for starters: if Randy Johnson goes down, many of the more highly leveraged innings that he would have pitched are going to go to the set-up man and the closer, while the replacement starter manages the first five innings or so: there's still going to be a trickle-down effect through the staff.

Anyway, the basic way in which WARP1 is calculated is to multiply DERA by xip to get runs saved above average: then the difference between pitching runs above average and pitching runs above replacement is added in. If what you care about is runs saved above average, just use xip and DERA and don't bother about replacement level. The point is, the leverage index should be applied to innings pitched, not to the measure of effectiveness, because the relief pitcher's overall ip is being held down by the team in order to make sure that the pitcher is available at maximum efficiency in highly leveraged situations, so it is the pitcher's ip that need to be adjusted to accurately reflect the pitcher's value to the team, which is what we need to measure in order to assess the pitcher's merit.

That's also why, although we recognize that relief aces and closers are used in ways that maximize their ERA+, we shouldn't dock that ERA+ in calculating value because the main strategic point of relief pitcher usage is to maximize ERA+ in highly leveraged situations. Because relief aces are given the opportunity to maximize their ERA+, it would be foolish simply to rank relievers versus starters on the basis of ERA+, but nobody here is going to do that, I expect.

The big RP advantage for me is this:
You enter with a 3-2 lead, allow single, single, walk, double.
Ballgame over, second and third, none out. For a starter, those fellas likely will score as well. But you are 'capped' at just allowing the two runs.
Extreme example, yes. But basically when you stink, you can't stink as much as an SP can.

I'm, for whatever reason, interested in the question of "How many relievers?" Here's a quick-n-dirty start to thinking about how many relievers might end up in the HOM.

1) There's around 250 league seasons in history.
2) Relievers have been prominent since, roughly, 1950.
3) So relievers have been seriously used in 110 or so of the 250 big-league seasons, 44%.
4) If the HOM should ideally include about 30% pitchers, and we're electing about 220 men by 2007, then it will include 65-70 pitchers.
5) Of those pitchers, all else being equal (and it's probably not), the HOM would induct about 30 pitchers from the post-1950 era.
6) Relievers account for about 25% of innings (roughly 2 per game).
7) 25% of 30 HOM pitchers post-1950 is 7.5.
8) BUT a HOM starting pitcher would be better than an average pitcher, so they probably are consuming more innings. Let's say that in a HOM starter's game, there's more like 1.5 innings of relief...three-fifths of 7.5 is 4.5 relievers.

So 4.5 relievers seems like a pretty reasonable starting point. Is it the "right" general total to work toward? Or is it too high?

I'd suggest that replacement level for relievers is substantially higher than for starters. Not many guys can throw even 5 IP in the bigs, much less go through a batting order a third time and go 7-8 IP.

Just think about going out into the market (trade, free agents, whatever) to pick up a pitcher this winter. What are the odds of picking up a reliever, typical workload 1 IP in each of 50 games, who will compile a 3.00 ERA for you? Not bad. What are the odds of picking up a starter who will even go 5 IP in each of 30 games with ERA 4.00? Not good.

Like any pitcher, there's at least two dimensions to relievers:
1) usage
2) performance

Usage is captured in a combination of leverage index, saves, innings, and, perhaps, games finished.

Performance, on the other hand, requires different lenses than we're used to. Saves and blown saves might be in the mix, ERA and ERA+ probably are, and inherited runners and inherited runners scored probably should be as well.

Anyway, I decided to take a quick look at a group of about 60 of the best-known relievers to see what their mean ERAs were to see how much these stud relievers typically outdistanced their leagues by. All numbers are through 2004 only and DO include starting numbers.

There's a pretty definite trend here toward increasing ERA+. Whether this is a result of people being converted to relief instead of banished to the bullpen or what, I don't know (there's probably a ton of little factors going on). Anyway, but Mariano's 190 is a little less staggering in context (thought it's still amazing!).

One more list. Same groups as above, this time, I'm listing the percentage difference between the individual pitcher's ERA+ and the group's mean ERA+.

Rivera and Wilhelm truly stand out from their peers looking this way. After them, Wagner seems to form his own second tier, then there's a large clump of All-Star relievers including Hiller, Tekulve, Quiz, Eichorn, Henke, Percival, and Benitez, all of whose ERA+s are 10% above their peers'.

Now, take all this with a grain of salt because guys like Eck, Gordon, Gossage, Fingers, Miller, Kinder, Wilhelm, Wood and others have lots of starting pitching in there to make things a little messy. My guess would be that the removal of their starting innings would lead to an upping of ERA, and a subsequent narrowing of the spread of the % of ERA+ tables. i think Retrosheet has that data for some guys, so someday I'll see what it can tell me.

That's great info Dr C. My personal HoM will have closer to 10 relievers than 5. I look at those lists and see more than five no-brainers. That said, I think the Hall should have 75+ pitchers, not 65-70. I can see my 2005 ballot having 10 to 12 pitchers on it as I diverge from the group. I already have Welch, Rixey, Ruffing, Grimes, Redding, Waddell and Griffith; and I am adding Ferrell next week. So that's eight. My goodness.

I want to point out that we shouldn't merely look at total league seasons when figuring out how many closers there will be. There were more teams, and hence more players, in the modern era. There will be more electees from the expansion era than from the 1880's. So a little more wieght should probably be put upon the era of the closer and the tweener, adding maybe another reliever or two. I think that 5-7 sounds about right.

On another note, what does everyone think of Trevor Hoffman. Seems to me that he was better than Smith, reardon, Franco and some other high saves non no-brainer guys. Right now I would expect to have him 2012 (or whatever) ballot. If I don't, I think my brother would disown me anyways. There are just some things more important than getting the HOM right. ;-)

Rivera ranked 19th on last year's combined list. A 30% boost would move him up to 3rd (behind Bonds and Santana; ahead of RJohnson, Schilling, Pujols, and Edmonds).

Was his season last year THAT good?

In a word, no. Rivera's 2004 WARP1 total provides a good example of why a standard 30% boost to relievers is inappropriate. The WARP xip formula comes much closer to capturing the leveraged value of the post-1990 closer than it does for earlier styles of relievers.

In 2004, Rivera actually pitched 78.7 innings. xip credits him with 136.8 innings -- what we might call a leverage index of 1.74. Since 2.00 is the theoretical maximum, the most that Rivera's 2004 WARP1 should be increased is 15%, and I would think that 5-10% would be a more appropriate amount, as Tangotiger has shown that Rivera's leverage index has generally been between 1.75 and 1.9.

when we begin analyzing relievers, we'll also have to remember that it's easier to put up a gaudy ERA (or ERA+) as a reliever than a starter. Part of this is the 'fewer innings per outing' thing (no 'pacing' required), and some of it is the inherent reliever ERA advantage of not being responsible for inherited runnners on base when entering mid-inning.

Howie Menckel (# 105) wrote:

The big RP advantage for me is this:
You enter with a 3-2 lead, allow single, single, walk, double.
Ballgame over, second and third, none out. For a starter, those fellas likely will score as well. But you are 'capped' at just allowing the two runs.

These two examples show why a reliever's ERA is not directly comparable to a starter's. Does anyone know whether BP, in calculating DERA for relief pitchers, attempts to adjust for these effects?

Dr. Chaleeko (# 106) wrote:

If the HOM should ideally include about 30% pitchers, and we're electing about 220 men by 2007, then it will include 65-70 pitchers.

Although I agree with a target of 30 percent pitchers, at least so far, the majority of the electorate disagrees. If my count is accurate, we've elected 30 pitchers out of 116, or 26 percent. (I've counted Ward and Dihigo each as half pitchers.) If the present rate continues, we'll have only about 55-57 pitchers when the HoM reaches 220 inductees.

John,
In view of all the interesting technical issues that are being raised regarding the evaluation of relief pitchers, I wonder whether a separate relief pitchers thread might be warranted.

These two examples show why a reliever's ERA is not directly comparable to a starter's. Does anyone know whether BP, in calculating DERA for relief pitchers, attempts to adjust for these effects?

Although I can't say for certain, none of the descriptions of the process by which the WARP system goes from a pitcher's actual IP and RA through NRA and PRAA to DERA suggests that there is any adjustment made for the features of reliever usage patterns that may suppress their RA totals somewhat.

Here's a sudden thought. Dizzy Dean had 87 relief appearances and 30 saves. It seems like that part of his record ought to be leveraged. Let's say he threw 100 IP and a full 2.0 leverage (that's a guess, but I'm low balling the IP and high balling the leverage so maybe it averages out). Then let's say that his relief ERA+ was 200 (again guessing).

Now he's up from 1967 IP to 2067 IP and his 130 ERA+ goes up, okay, not very much. A point or two at best.

But how about his peak. 1934 30-7 2.66 (159) in 311.2 IP. 17 relief appearances, 11 saves. Say 25 IP at 200. Now he's at 337 IP at 165 (wild guess). His peak could get a little bit better and could possibly get competitive with some of the other really big peaks out there...

I'd agree that Dean's peak deserves another look in light of leverage issues. I think it would also be appropriate to look again at the pre-1960s relievers KJOK has listed to make sure that a lack of accounting for leveraging hasn't led us to overlook a deserving candidate.

Just for fun, best ERA+ from best to less best including only years of 10 saves or more (not necessarily a standard I would want to defend, just something for the moment). Also Rivera through 2003, don't have '04 handy.

Rivera 4 years >200, Gossage 3. And yes one of those was a short season (the 464 = 46.2 IP) but the other 2 encompass 274.2 IP. Rivera's 4 years > 200 = 272.2 IP.

7th best year (as of 2003) Gossage 173 Rivera 162, and Gossage has a 172 and a 156 remaining behind that.

Gossage has 11 years > 123 with a median of 179. He threw 10 years and almost 700 IP over and above that, dragging his career ERA+ down to 126. Another George Sisler?

In fairness Rivera also has another year at 237 and in a career high 107 IP but just 5 saves. So I'm not defending my method and not saying Gossage is better than Rivera. Just saying that Gossage had a hell of a prime and don't let the career number alone confuse you about that.

This is going to be explained more thoroughly in The Book, but the adjustment for RA for AL starter/reliever is 0.80. (ERA would be around 0.70). So, to put Mo on the same scale as Mussina, you add 0.70 to his ERA. This is based on starter/relief performance of 99-02. I don't know whether this is true in earlier years. (Once the book is out, you guys can apply the same process to the earlier years.)

For NL starters, since they have the benefit of the pitcher batting (which the NL reliever does not), the impact isn't as great.

Of course, since interleague play, the AL starter does get some boost because of this as well.

I recommend just giving a blanket 0.50 ERA boost for now, until you guys can come up with the proper timeline adjustments.

>To only re-examine one guy wouldn't be all that fair to the other candidates.

This is exactly what I said. To leverage one guy and not the other is unfair.

You say having Dizzy Dean inside the circle is more unfair. I disagree. I say having Dizzy inside the circle is less unfair. I say having Marbury inside is less unfair. Having Rivera inside is less unfair. Having Joe Blow inside is less unfair. Every player we can get inside is less unfair.

You say excluding one player is less unfair. That's not correct.

And fair to whom? We are trying to be fair to the idea of a HoM, and it just happens that Dizzy Dean is getting votes and pitched a lot of relief. Excluding him from further analysis is not less unfair.

I think you're extrapolating my thoughts out further than I meant them to go. I agree with you that further analysis is fair, all I'm saying is that he's not the only candidate whose case would probably benefit from it because his pattern of usage was somewhat common at the time.

If Rixey, Grimes, or Ruffing (or anyone else) were likely to benefit from this analysis, they should get it too as a matter of doing the best we can to identify the best candidates and make the best case for them that can be made.

The same guy will have a lower ERA (and OBP and SLG) as a reliever than as a starter. Or, if your baseline is the average pitcher (or replacement pitcher), that pitcher will have a lower ERA as a reliever than as a starter. Your baseline is different.

Re: KJOK's post #132. I think #2 is much, much more important than #1.

And that means that it also affects starters from our time.

Pedro Martinez can go something closer to all out, becuase he knows he doesn't have to pitch past the 6th or 7th inning. (And I'm not talking specifically about Pedro - I'm talking about everyone, every starter). So his IP are lower than those of a starter from an earlier time. If he ever does pitch in the 8th, it's likely to be high leverage.

KJOK: Actually, I was only looking at #2 above. It's hard to believe, but a pitcher will have a component ERA that is about 0.70 higher, based solely on #2 (using 1999-2002 data). The data will all be layed out (though you'll have to wait about 5 months for it).

Now, if you want to have a different adjustment level for relievers with 1 IP per game, or 2 IP per game or 3 IP per game.... that's not a bad thing to do either. That's alot more work, though.

I suppose some sort of sliding scale, from 0.70 for 1 IP per game to 0.00 for 5 IP per game might be in order. I dunno, 0.80, 0.40, 0.20, 0.10, 0.00 for 1 through 5 IP per game? (Just speculating).

Thanks to BPro, I've assembled the career inherited runners (IHR) and inherited runners scored (IHRS) for most of the guys I did the ERA+ analysis for above. BPro's numbers only reach back as far as 1972, so some totals will be partials. For a frame of reference, somewhere around one-third of all inherited runners score (IIRC).

In 1998 Randy Myers stranded all 22 runners he inherited. Next best perfect IHR season is Greg Olson with 16 IHR stranded in 1998. Billy Wagner had two perfect years with 10 and 9 IHR in 2003 and 1998 respectively.

-In 2004 Trevor Hoffman was under 10% when he allowed only 1 of 11 IHR to score. And in the two healthy years surrounding 2004 (2002 and 2005), he allowed only 10% of IHR to score.

-In 1990 Randy Myers allowed only 9% of 32 IHR to score.

-In 1994 Rob Nen prevented all but one of his 24 IHR from scoring, 4%.

-In 2001 Troy Percival allowed only one of his 14 IHR to score, 7%.

-In 1993 Jeff Reardon let just one of his 28 IHR score, 4%.

-In 1984 Lee Smith allowed a single runner of the 43 he inherited score.

The worst????
Well, there's a couple small-sample contenders (Joe Hoerner's allowing 10 of 11 to score in 1977 is pretty stinky) but for sheer volume of craptasticness it's probably The Quis's 1987 season. He allowed 26 of 43 IHR to score (60%). Yech!

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One question worth asking about IHR is whether stranding inherited runners is, in fact, an actual skill, or if it's the luck of the draw. I don't know the answer, and I'm not exactly certain how to find it. In the next post, I'll put out the year-by-year data so that someone more statistically savvy than me can figure it out if they want to.

Would be interesting to know that. There seem to be some pitchers who go to pieces when a couple of hits are made off them, while others remain calm at all times. Also, some pitchers are at their best from pitch 1, whereas others take time to settle in. Timlin, for example, seems to take time to settle in, which is why he is so bad with inherited runners (but was that true throughout his career?) Good nerves and ability to "find the range" fast would appear a priori to be real abilities to a greater extent than mere "clutchiness."

Apologies in advance if there are any inputting errors in what I've just posted. I found one and corrected it before I posted any of this information.

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Karl, I think there could be three possible explanations (among those which are under a pitcher's control, so hit-luck and which batter he enters against notwithstanding) for why a pitcher might perform well or not do very well with runners on base:
1) excellent control---which minimizes the advancement of baserunners beyond the slugging abilities of the opposing hitters

2) heavy ball---keeping the ball down leads to GIDPs and avoids long hits (including sac flies)

3) high k-rate---if you can't hit it...

Someone like Eckersley had all three of these and spun some amazing IHR seasons out of it. Hoffman too. Interestingly, neither of those two would be considered a "fastball" pitcher, relying instead on their assortment, especially Hoffman and his change. Strangely, though, Mariano allows a fairly high rate of IHRS based on his ERA+. This MIGHT be a function of his lousy defense.

Since retrosheet now has detailed data back to 1960, which is pretty much the beginning of the "reliever" era, it might be instructive to look at reliever's actual "Batting against" line (OBP allowed, SLG allowed, Runs Created/27 against, etc.) as opposed to their ERA+?

Orosco, with an ERA+ of 125 looks to have added far fewer to others' ERA+ than Rivera, with an ERA+ of 190 (eyeballing the figures, and being lazy). The ideal analysis might be to take a group of oroscos, with good IHR and mediocre ERA+ and compare it to a group of Riveras, with wonderful ERA+ and poor IHP, and see if differences jump out at you. Pity we have only one year of Wilhelm in this context (2256 IP at 146 looks a clear HOMer, but what about his IHR rate?)

1961 Election is 10/3, but those are guys who retired by 1955 I think, so we're not quite yet up to 1960 for any eligible electees, so I think it's December before we get to any eligible players who actually played in 1959, the first retrosheet available year (for AL)...

In case anyone's curious, here's the relief appearances, games finished, and saves for various candidates and potential candidates. Figure out how to leverage 'em as you see fit. No pre-1890rs because there were too few RA to make it worth checking on. From most to least RA:

Returning to a discussion that took place earlier on this thread, in # 89 jschmeagol asked:

How much should someone like Rivera, or a starter like Pettite, receive for postseason play?

Tango Tiger responded:

Of course World Series should count! Isn't it what baseball is all about? Personally, I would triple anything a player does in the playoffs.

OCF disagreed:

But there's this problem:

Lou Brock: 21 G, 92 PA, .391/.424/.651 plus 14-2 as a basestealer.

Ernie Banks: O G, statistics N/A.

If we triple Brock's record and add it to the appropriate seasons, then it makes a distinct difference to his value, especially his peak value. But is doing that fair to Banks?

sunnyday2 then wrote:

I agree with O here... as for post-season, the danger is that when Mariano becomes eligible, all of a sudden his post-season record will be used as XC, whereas nobody else's post-season record has ever really been discussed.

IOW in order for it to be fair to give Rivera a post-season boost, we really ought to calculate all the other post-season values, all-time, to make sure the list isn't getting skewed.

FWIW, I've been giving credit for post-season play ever since I started voted. Trying to do it systematically too--I look at how the team and the player did in each World Series he played and take a guess as to how many win shares it should be worth (usually zero, one, or two). Unlike Tango Tiger's suggestion, I don't triple them. I don't think it's ever been enough to make a significant difference in anyone's candidacy, though it might move a player up two or three places.

Regarding fairness to players like Banks...well, I long ago recognized that absolute fairness is unattainable in view of the diverse circumstances of each player's career. But I do think that players on really good teams face some offsetting factors that sometimes may hurt their statistics relative to players on poor teams.

In particular, on a top team like the Yankees or the Dodgers of the 1950s, playing time was at a premium, which made it more difficult to break into the lineup and easier to lose your spot when a player's performance began to fade. For example, both Keller and Rizzuto had excellent seasons in the high (triple A-equivalent) minors that would have earned them spots with two-thirds of the teams in baseball. In both cases, they were sent back to play another season before they were finally brought up.

So maybe win shares or postseason extra credit tend to slightly favor players on good teams, but I'm not sure that the effects aren't offset by reduced playing time.

Ultimately, I agree with Tango that championships are what baseball is all about. So somehow it has seemed to me that failing to give credit for postseason play would insult the principles on which the sport is organized.

A really cool little (litte?) study for somebody would be to go back and list some of the really great post-season players. Every voter can decide how to use the info, but if we're going to give Mariano Rivera and Lou Brock (too late to worry about Frankie Frisch) post-season XC, we ought to know who else is in that particular mix.

And I wasn't talking about the "unfairness" of boosting Brock versus Ernie Banks, for example, though there is an element of "unfairness" there.

I am more concerned, frankly, about the "unfairness" of giving Brock or Mantle a boost, for instance, while forgetting even to look at and consider Clemente's or Snider's or Frank Baker's or Heinie Groh's post-season record or whomever. (Not that these are good examples.)

And what then of Temple Cup or NeLs...?

Anyway, it's not the selective opportunity of the players, it is a wholly selective consideration of post-season records by us voters, that's what would concern me.

I am only giving credit to players with impressive post season play. If a player has been average or worse no credit is given, none is taken away. If a player never made the post season, no credit is given.

I think that this is fair because it doesn't give a player extra points over soemone who never got the chance unless that player did something special. So extra credit given to Whitey Ford, Mariano, Reggie, Gibson, etc.

I would, however appreciate some kind of rundown of players who excelled in the postseason. I know I have missed plenty of guys through the years.

It might well be that the player for whom the postseason credit question looms largest is not Rivera but Smoltz.

Perhaps 2005 regular season puts him over the top anyway - another full season as a starter with an ERA+ near 150. That gives him 2929 (regular season) career IP with an ERA+ somewhere near 126 or 127.

But his postseason record amounts to just about another full season: 39 games, 26 starts, 199.2 IP, 14-4 record with 4 saves. And what are the conditions of postseason? The weather is colder, which helps pitchers, but the level of competition is higher. Bbref, for obvious reasons, doesn't try to compute ERA+, but we can compare the raw stats.

From 1969-2003, the runs scored in post-season, relative to regular season, by only looking at the teams in the playoffs, is 90%. A team that scores 5 runs will score 4 in the playoffs. A team that allows 4 runs will allow 4 in the playoffs.